程颢的美德伦理学:超越理性主义与情感主义之争

Cheng Hao's virtue ethics:transcending the debate between rationalism and sentimentalism

在当代西方美德伦理学复兴运动的多元景观中,以亚里士多德为源泉的理性主义和以休谟为养分的情感主义是主流。情感主义认为美德是一种情感,而当代情感主义美德伦理学的最重要代表斯洛特(Michael Slote)认为,作为美德的最重要的情感或者情感产生机制是同感,即对他人痛苦的感同身受。在他看来,程颢讲的与万物为一体实际上就是同感,或者说同感就是程颢的万物一体感,因为与万物为一体也就是能感到万物的痛痒。在这个意义上,可以将程颢看作是情感主义美德伦理学家。但与当代西方的情感主义美德伦理学不对同感为什么是美德做进一步说明不同,程颢将万物一体感与儒家最重要的美德即仁相联系,认为只有仁者才能与万物为一体,而仁又属于将人与动物区分开来的人性。所以万物一体感之所以是美德,是因为它是人之为人或人之为健全的、没有缺陷的人的标志。在这一点上,又可以将程颢看作是个理性主义美德伦理学家。

Humean sentimentalism and Aristotelian rationalism are prominent in the recently renewed field of virtue ethics in the West.Michael Slote,a leading figure of this field argues that empathy,the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing,is the most important moral sentiment.He notes that Confucian thinkers such Cheng Hao have had the present concept of empathy hundreds of years before that notion was self-consciously available in the West.He also believes that how Cheng Hao describes the person who is in one body with the ten thousand things is essentially empathy.In this sense,Cheng Hao can be considered a sentimentalist virtue ethicist.Unlike his western counterparts,however,Cheng Hao explains why empathy is a virtue by associating empathy with Ren,the highest virtue or ideal in Confucianism.He states that only those with the virtue of Ren can truly be in one body with the ten thousand things in the world.For this reason,Cheng Hao can also be considered a rationalist virtue ethicist.